A woman pregnant with a whole lot of cannabis got caught trying to smuggle drugs out of Argentina. While traveling near the Chilean border, a woman with a fake nine-pound baby bump full of illegal cannabis was stopped with a group.
She was found out after further inspection was done by the police who pulled them over. According to a statement released by the Argentine National Gendarmerie, which is the country’s border patrol, the woman used a paste to create a fake baby bump with thousands of dollars worth of marijuana inside.
In a picture posted on twitter titled “I pretended to be pregnant, but I had a fake belly with drugs,” a woman wearing a blue tank top concealed a fake baby bump with pounds of cannabis inside.
📍 #Mendoza | Simulaba estar embarazada pero llevaba un falso vientre con droga ✅ Era pasajera de un colectivo que se dirigía hacia #CaletaOlivia #SantaCruz ✅ En el mismo transporte otro ciudadano llevaba en su bolso paquetes con marihuana
The group was on a seven-hour journey from Mendoza to Caleta Olivia, which is in the province of Santa Cruz. She wasn’t the only one in her group with cannabis on them, as the gendarmerie got more than four kilos and 540 grams of marijuana in the stop. An Argentinean politician named Patricia Bullrich, the country’s minister of security, took to twitter to call the pregnancy a “narco pregnancy.”
“She made a belly out of paste, hid 15 cannabis bricks inside it and faked a pregnancy before trying to take it from Mendoza to Santa Cruz,” Bullrich wrote in Spanish. Police in the area were alerted of a possible drug-smuggling where the fake pregnant woman and her partners were found.
In Argentina, cannabis has been decriminalized in small amounts since a supreme court ruling in 2009, however, only private use is allowed. The country, which has had large smuggling problems over the years with the cartels and local gangs, has tried to crack down on the illegal drug trade in recent years. Both the country and Chile have joined efforts to try and slow down the trade, while Argentina has also joined with Paraguay to stop marijuana trafficking.
Medicinal marijuana in the country is not regulated, however, marijuana for medical use was legalized in 2017. In 2018, the first steps were made for the country to begin focusing on a medicinal program in the country. The agreement and partnership with Chile, which also has decriminalized marijuana, will see the production of cannabis oil to treat medical symptoms.
While the country has a series of decriminalization rules for cannabis, there is no system to sell or cultivate the drug as of yet. While there is support in the country, no further moves have been made to help integrate the plant into a recreational system.